My Athletic Đán

Đán is a good athlete. Because of his brave and wild personality, he can pick up any sport quickly. He learned to swim at the age of four by jumping into the deep end of the pool and trying to make himself to me. Đạo and Xuân never trusted me enough to do that.

When he learned to ski, he picked it real fast as well. He always skied at the edge of the slope or tried to find hills he could jump off. He made Đạo and his cousin went on the blue and black slopes with him. I sometimes worried about his fearlessness.

He wanted to take up fencing because it sounded cool when he told people that. He’s really into it and he does it quite well. The instructors encouraged him to practice more and get into private lessons to focus on his technical skills.

He picked up ice skating fast too. The first time he went out on the ice, he didn’t use the wall. He just walked, fell, got up, and walked again. He quickly found his balance. I instructed him to start skating instead of walking and he began jumping. In the last few weeks, I started to learn the hockey stop from watching some YouTube videos. He saw how I sprayed a bit of ice and got intrigued. He asked me to teach him. He got impatient at first, but I assured him that he could do it quickly. Not only he now can do the hockey stop, but he can also skate backward, crossover, and even one-foot eagle. He just tried out whatever he saw other people do that looked cool. He has the natural ability and now he just needed correct instructions. I wanted to enroll him into private lessons, but he is doing so many activities. He seemed to love all the sports he is playing and he didn’t complain about any of them.

Last week, Đạo and I joined him to play soccer from 9:30 am to 11 am. Then I took him ice skating from 12 pm to 3:30 pm. I was exhausted, but he had swimming class from 5 pm to 6 pm. After his lesson, he wanted extra time to play in the pool. He went straight to bed and slept right through the night after dinner.

I wish his academics were as good as his athleticism, but you can’t have everything. He had been diagnosed with ADHD. Sports seem to help with his overactive mind and body. He burned so much energy without feeling tired. If he sat around, he would get bored and beg for iPad time. Reading seems hard for him to focus. He is slowly improving; therefore, I am backing off making him read every night. He got in trouble in class once in a while for not paying attention or not listening to his teachers. He struggles with Spanish. We’re thinking of pulling him out of the immersion program next year so he can focus only in English. We’ll see if he would improve or fall further behind at the end of this school year.